A town to town rifling through the long-protected legacies of the American West. Texas artist and historian Russell Cushman digs for the unvarnished West beyond the popular myth, and finds meaningful lessons and useful truths- and a wagon load of deceptions- about our American pioneer heritage.
THE BADMAN OF THE WEST- by George D. Hendricks (1942): One of the first comprehensive studies of the American outlaw, written by my father's University English Professor... and later mine... I grew up with this book laying around in my father's library, and absolutely devoured and regurgitated it until it was... probably the inspiration for this blog.
BRAVO of the BRAZOS, John Larn of Fort Griffin, Texas- by Robert K. DeArment: Excellent and authoritative account of an ignored yet amazing story from the Texas frontier, and great details about Ft Griffin, Texas you cannot find anywhere else.
The Outlaw BILL LONGLEY, A Texas Hard-case; The Man Who Lived To Hang Twice- by Ed Bartholomew: A somewhat overdue (1953) account of "Wild Bill" Longley, of Washington and Bell Counties. No glorification here of a most conversive Southern, racist serial killer who was finally, successfully executed in Giddings, Texas after killing perhaps two dozen men. Batholomew is painfully objective, and yet maintains a very human connection with the outlaw, explaining why he enjoyed so much bizarre popularity.
Life and Adventures of Ben Thompson- by W. M. Walton ((1956 reprint by Steck) A somewhat subjective, 1884 account by an obvious ally, about one of the most controversial men of Dodge City, Kansas and Austin, Texas. Walton was a proud defender of the Gambler/Gunman/Lawman who fought for the South, then for Maximillian in Mexico, before starting his gambling career in Brenham, and later terrorized Dodge City before taking the City Marshal job in Austin!
Authentic History of SAM BASS And His Gang- by A Citizen of Denton County (1879 reprint): This was a first-hand account lifted from Marvin Hunter's classic, Frontier Times, in 1950, and the writer was one of the legion of possemen chasing Bass and his men in the bottoms of Denton, Cooke, Wise, Jack and Dallas Counties. He tries to explain the challenges of manhunting in the Texas wilderness, and the clever way Bass eluded capture until he was killed in the famous shoot-out in Round Rock, Texas.
THE LAST GUNFIGHTER, John Wesley Hardin- by Richard C. Marohn: The last word on the "last gunfighter." An exhaustive, scholarly study into every available detail of the West's most celebrated gunfighter. Marohn gives a rare peek into Hardin's personal life, his loves and hates, and his prison years and various careers. I love this book, consider it essential, BUT, Marohn made one terrible misjudgment about his crowning achievement- by including dozens of previously unknown photos of Hardin... most of which were not, could not be the famous outlaw. This hurt the book and its overall credibility, and hurt history. I completely understand the temptation he faced, in trying to turn over a new leaf... but I will turn some of those leaves face-down in this blog. Still, it has the images we know to be true... and makes a great attempt at achieving the "the last word" on the subject of another legendary Texas terror..
ACCORDING TO KATE, The Legendary Life of Big Nose Kate, Love of Doc Holliday- by Chris Enss: HURRAY! An in-depth account about a female western icon by a female... Even though it certainly does not matter, but this male-dominated genre has stupidly ignored icons such as Kate, and who better than a woman to "write the wrong." Kate was a lifelong prostitute, and at the end her relationship with Holliday, viciously betrayed him out of female jealousy, and hurt herself in the process. She turned on both Doc Holliday and the Earps, and her testimony got Holliday arrested for stage robbery, and then she left Tombstone, thought by many to be a hard-hearted whore, a double-crosser, and either a dangerous liar or a unfaithful snitch. Still, this is a valuable book, respectfully written by Enss from Kate Horony's somewhat biased and even tormented perspective. Note: The more I know about Holliday and the Earps, the more her claims make sense!
Tales of BADMEN, BAD WOMEN, AND BAD PLACES, Four Centuries of Texas Outlawry- by C. F. Eckhardt: Buy everything you can by this author. You will treasure every volume... and he has a bunch... mostly small, inexpensive paperbacks with specialized studies of Texas history. Eckhardt is carefully factual, and often offers new angles on worn out subjects, with wonderful wit and humor rare in any genre.
BAT MASTERSON, THE BIOGRAPHY OF ONE OF THE WEST'S MOST FAMOUS GUNFIGHTERS AND MARSHALS- by Richard O'Connor: A somewhat loosely written and often challenged bio of the famous buffalo hunter, indian fighter, gambler, boxing promoter, lawman, hired gunman and sports writer... which, after all of its faults, nobody has bested yet.
WHEN THE DALTONS RODE- by Emmett Dalton: A rare, introspective sales pitch by a career criminal, the first of many to capitalize on his outlaw life. Emmett Dalton, the youngest of the Dalton Gang, saw his family devolve from a respectable Oklahoma law enforcement clan into one of the worst bank and train robbing gangs in the West, and was the only one to live to tell their tale. And he could not help but cloud some of the facts in order to "protect the innocent," and others who were not so innocent, but had moved on... Supposedly reformned in prison, he wrote his side of the story to discourage young punks from a life of crime... while he returned to civilian life, married his old sweetheart, and enjoyed the celebrity of his escapades in California as a Western writer and movie producer.
GUNFIGHTER, The Autobiography of John Wesley Hardin: Hardin was one of the few bad men who could write and actually wrote well, as compared to many outlaws who were illiterate. This small book gives us a very rare glimpse into the mind of a murdering sociopath, who as the back cover advertises, had NO REMORSE. Canny and even likable, Hardin takes the reader on a rip-roaring tear through the American West, probably self-serving, explaining and justifying each killing along the way; Bragging of deadly encounters with soldiers, lawmen, and other gunslingers like "Wild Bill" Longley and "Wild Bill" Hickock, always coming out on top, as he should. The account stops upon his release from Huntsville Prison, and of course does not cover his becoming a lawyer, defending other murderers, taking up with a prostitute, and being assassinated in El Paso. That is not missed terribly because his claim to fame, the killing spree- was over, and the value of the book is the impact of the prison stay on him, barely mitigating Hardin's view of himself or appropriate human behavior... while preparing him for a law career. Invaluable insight I would think for any person studying criminolgy.
THE POET SCOUT, A Book of Song and Story- by Jack Crawford: Don't get this book because of the poetry... which is pretty lame in my opinion. It is valuable becasue of its surprisingly artistic, even sensitive perspective about Nature, religion, music and Native Americans- by a veteran buffalo hunter, cavalry scout, gold miner, and wild west entertainer. An associate of Buffalo Bill Cody, Crawford was greatly loved and respected by many elites in his generation... and because of his "liberal" outlook on things.
TEMPLE HOUSTON, LAWYER WITH a GUN- A Biography of Sam Houston's Son- by Glen Shirley: One of the West's most popular and respected writers for many years, Glenn Shirley obviously saw gold in the story of this largely ignored Oklahoma/Texas legend. Temple Houston was a bright, educated favorite son who struck out on his own as a frontier lawyer, and displayed his father's gift of winning language and/or mortal combat... whichever was called for in his wild world of untamed indians, ruthless outlaws, imperial cattlemen and spineless politicians. After law school, first stop was Hidetown... at Ft. Elliott, also known as Mobeetie.
A Cowboy Detective, A True Story of Twenty-Two Years With a World-Famous Detective Agency- by Charles A. Siringo: This humble volume, written by a real cowboy and frontier detective, is almost a "Who's Who of the West." Siringo was a prolific writer, and actually had writtn his first book before he ever signed on with the Pinkertons. Pinkertons, Pinkertons, Pinkertons! I do that because he could not. After he wrote this book, the Pinkertons sued, harrassed, obstructed and bankrupted him for violating his contract with them, which promised, according to their lawyers, not to write anything about his service while working for them. He was finally able to publish an edited form of his manuscript by agreeing to never name names of Pinkerton agents, or use the word "PINKERTON." This was the book which they blocked and complained about, even having many original copies destroyed, making them the bad guys in many eyes. It's a good read, and by a man who really LIVED the wild west, camped with outlaws, hunted "Billy the Kid" with Pat Garrett, and many, many other exciting adventures, from coast to coast. Pinkerton, Pinkerton, Pinkerton
A Texas Cowboy- by Charles L. Siringo: How Siringo changed his middle initial, after his death, I have no idea... but this particular version of this western classic is a wonderful, leather-bound, illustrated facsimile of the 1885 original. Will Rogers supposedly once called it "the cowboy's Bible." But the middle initial should be an "A." Charlie was a shiftless Texas cowpuncher who, after some miserable cattle drives, wisened up and went into the ice cream business and wrote his humorous story of life on the plains. Siringo was merely tolerated and even disbelieved in his own time, largely due to the Pinkerton's campaign against him, (and PR mistakes he made on his own) but the work has stood the test of time, and stands taller today in my estimation.
SIRINGO- by Ben E. Pingenot: Here we learn, as Paul Harvey always grinningly quipped, THE REST OF THE STORY. Pingenot does a good job ferreting out all the ins and outs of Charlie Siringo's illustrious, mercurial career... and the personal background which tells another story, the price Siringo paid for his swagger. I remember thinking the author was a bit hard on Charlie, but we would agree that Siringo was his own worst enemy. At the top of his indiscretions was his unabashed ambition to make a lot of money, and his shallow committment to friends or family, which left him fairly empty in the end. And like his service to the Pinkertons, Siringo gave us much more than he ever took, and I think that all he ever asked for was an even break. And his lasting fame as a detective and writer prove that he deserved it, and maybe even got it, but he never lived to see it.
I MARRIED WYATT EARP, The Recollections of Josephine Sarah Marcus Earp- by Glenn G. Boyer: A lot of Western critics hated this book... and there was some controversy. "Experts" are always quick to discount anything which threatens their turf. A true expert welcomes new information, which adds to the pool of knowledge, knowing that his turf only grows stronger either way... the new information either supports his expertise, or pales in comparison. Only those with fragile foundations work so hard to destroy budding art. And writing, literature, is not math or science, it is art. I can't beleive I am saying this, but I think some of the opposition was a knee-jerk, Western male reaction to a woman (vicariously) plunking down her opinions in a traditionally Male-dominated cultural niche. But anytime a Western writer looks at something from the female perspective, I want to take a look at it. Westerners have been female perspective-deprived for too long. This is a good book. The important thing is that it reveals the facets of Wyatt Earp rarely ever encountered, that of a lover, husband and businessman. And it gives a wife's version of a famous man, and in this case a man who made a bunch of Western history and killed people. Sufficient ink is dedicated to the famous gunfight at the OK Corral... the longest 30 seconds in human history, and the other 47 years of their apparently loving marriage. And Josephine Earp's memory may have been the only honest recepticle of truth concerning the Earps, ever spilled. Almost every other account was either prejudiced- for or against, or stained with a political agenda, or jealousy, or clan hatred. Yes, there are problems with "her" account, which is really Boyer's arrangement of Josie Earp's memoirs, but show me a book about history which is completely free of artistic interpretation. It's a book OK? It's not the Magna Carta!
PAT GARRETT, THE STORY OF A WESTERN LAWMAN- by Leon C. Metz: I can't believe I spent most of my adult life, loving Western lore, and never having read this great book, which tells another important but neglected story... the life of the man who killed "The Kid." Metz is another essential Western author, and did justice to his reputation with this scholarly work. Unfortunately, that meant putting some tarnish on Garrett's legacy, because up until I read this book, I knew NOTHING about Pat Garrett, and he was no avenging angel. The book puts importance on the story around William "Billy the Kid" Bonney, but it also develops a three-dimensional Pat Garrett, including his frustrating Law Enforcement career, his failed investments, his gambling habit and constant other financial messes, which indirectly led to his mysterious assassination. But Metz should have named the book "Who Killed Pat Garrett?" because THAT is the question he leaves the reader with, even though I think he answers the question.
MORE TO COME- Read these Pilgrim and I'll fetch you another!
A sixth generation Texan, landscape painter, sculptor, photographer, writer and historian, Russell Cushman shares his passion for the music, art and history of the Brazos Valley.
I grew up in Texas, in a home where the Old West shaped our culture and our perspective on the world. For many school days I spent my after...
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